rise with the sun
by envysparkler
Summary: "What do you want, Your Highness?" "The moon. Shoot down the moon, murderer." – Zuko/Katara, AU.


**a/n:** Today, the 17th of June, marks the two-year anniversary of my entry into the chaotic world of fanfiction. I first entered through curiosity, accidentally finding the site after trying to look up an eBook. But, as time grew on, I began exploring this vast trove of stories, reading and writing, growing as a person. However, FFN is not just a tool for writers and readers. I have matured, gained amazing friends, made enemies and fought in wars. I have read stories that touched my heart, and fics that brighten my day. Fanfiction is the light in the dark, the sun amidst the clouds, an unpolished gem in the rock. It has taught me so much – taught me the value of friendship and loyalty and trust, the meaning of kindness and compassion, the acts of courage and humility. I thank it for shaping me into the person I am today.

**disclaimer:** I own nothing.

**dedication:** To fanfiction.

**summary:** "What do you want, Your Highness?" "The moon. Shoot down the moon, murderer." – Zuko/Katara, AU.

* * *

**rise with the sun**

* * *

_the moon is the source of our power_

* * *

Once upon a time, ages ago, in a distant world, a princess grew to fame in the Water Tribes. She was just and kind, compassionate and brave, and the people of the tribes united behind her. But there were those who sought to spread discord among them.

They spread lies about the princess, and turned tribe against tribe, pitting family and friends against each other with secrecy and betrayal. However, the princess soon learned of their scheme and her fury knew no bounds. With the wrath of the oceans and the power of the moon, she went to war against the traitors, fighting with blood and ice and water, with daggers of snow and swords of stars.

Within a fortnight, the spies were dead and the world knew not to trigger the rage of the Water Princess.

However, the other countries began to grow wary. The Water Tribes from around the world were changing. Usually a calm, peace-loving people, the tribes drifted wherever the tides took them, wherever wind and storm blew them, wherever the currents washed them ashore. Their sport was the waves, their food was fish, their entire lifestyle was the ocean.

They did not care about land, about the boundaries of countries. Only the Northern and Southern Water Tribes maintained a semblance of order, the others came and went as they pleased, making the stormy seas their own.

But the Water Tribes were no longer calm.

Slowly, under the guidance of the Water Princess, boats turned into ships. Cities turned into fortresses. The meager fishing fleet turned into an armada.

People began to panic on the streets. No one had ever thought that the seas themselves would come up and attack them. No one had ever predicted this aggressive stance from a flexible people.

The Air Nomads refused to partake in war. The Earth Kingdom was too vast to maintain its own affairs, let alone wage war against the very water they drank. So the task fell to the up-and-coming Fire Nation.

One dark, moonlit night, an assassin crept out of the Royal Palace, plan in hand. He was to sneak into the Princess' chambers and kill her as she slept. Quick and silent, a thief in the night. There would be an uproar at her death, that was for sure, but the Water Tribes weren't a warlike people by nature, and they would hopefully be placated with the assassin's execution.

Unfortunately, he had underestimated the young girl they called Princess.

He sought to slit her throat with his swords, a small, merciful, quiet death – simply a transition between dreamland and afterlife. However, before he took two steps into the room, his entire body seized up, his swords at his own throat, held by a hand that was certainly not controlled by him.

The Princess had calmly got up and walked to him, watching him as he was locked in the legendary technique that spread by word of mouth. Bloodbending, they called it, the taking of a body and willing the heart and nerve and muscles to work for another.

He had been struck by how young she was – barely a girl of sixteen, though she had the battle-hardened look about her. Her eyes were two shards of ice in the dark, her caramel skin nicely set off her flowing, unruly brown hair. She looked everything like a princess, and yet nothing like one at the same time.

Amber eyes were open – one wide, in shock; the other half-closed, due to an old injury – as the assassin took in her stance. One twitch of her fingers and he'd be dead, his blood splashing across the wooden floors.

_Too pretty, too light,_ he had thought randomly, _the blood would never come out._

A twist of her wrists and he'd be writing on the ground in pain.

_Not nearly as sadistic,_ he had mused, _too much a princess to torture me, too much a soldier to let me live._

A sudden release of tension would mean that he was free.

The assassin had gotten up, twisting his wrists to remove the kinks and spin his blades, trying to probe the thoughts of this unorthodox Princess, this bloodthirsty Queen.

She offered him a chance – one chance to live. He had to complete the task she gave him and complete it within a fortnight. If he succeeded, he would live. If he failed, she'd execute him in front of her people, tell them about his attempt on her life and name it as war.

"_What do you want, Your Highness?"_ was the weary question. The thoughts that had flitted through the assassin's mind were not pretty – he was young, himself, and his looks could be considered handsome.

The Princess' smile could've only been described as malevolent. _"The moon. Shoot down the moon, murderer, and your life is yours."_

And that was how this story began.

* * *

The assassin thought she was joking. How on earth was he supposed to shoot down the moon? He begged and pleaded, but the Princess did not budge.

"If you admit you cannot shoot down the moon," she said, "I shall execute you, here and now, long and drawn-out, so that you can _feel_ your heart collapse under the pain."

He might've been an assassin, but that did not mean that he didn't fear pain.

"Fine, Princess," he replied ungraciously, "I'll shoot down your damn moon. I have two weeks, right?"

"Two weeks, murderer," the Princess smiled, "Two weeks and no more." So saying that, she left.

* * *

The assassin began pacing his confined cell, wondering on how to go about this impossible task. The moon was too far and too large to even _contemplate_ harming. She had given him a ludicrous task, just to watch him try and fail.

_Sadistic is bloody right, _he thought irritably.

The Princess visited him every day to bring his lunch – sea prunes and five flavor stew – and sat by his bars for fifteen minutes as he consumed the only food he was offered. While taking back the plates, she bended water into his open mouth. To her credit, she didn't deliberately miss and splash his water on the grimy floor, above the pathetic humiliation tactics weaker jailors used.

During those fifteen minutes she talked – talked about anything and everything while he ate, silently listening. He knew that he was marked for slaughter, but it was still a nice gesture of faith, listening to her talk about secrets and feelings she hadn't confided in anyone else.

She reminisced about her brother, a Water Tribe warrior named Sokka, the General of her army. She talked about her long-dead father, who instilled in her the virtues of strength and empathy. She talked about her mother who died, bleeding and naked, when the Sea Ravens pillaged their boats. She talked about the mysterious Avatar, the unseen hand behind her throne.

She told him state secrets – which ship was where, which tribe was reliable, the state of affairs in the Northern Water Tribe. She told him about Kiyoshi island, where Sokka's warrior bride-to-be trained an elite set of girls in an ancient, long-forgotten Avatar art of war.

She poured out her fears – how she thought that bloodbending would corrupt her, how she abhorred taking lives, how she believed that every person could change, as long as they were given the means to do so.

Listening to her was soothing. He was going to die and take her secrets to the grave, but he suspected that that wasn't the only reason she talked to him. She was the Princess – to the Water Tribes, she was practically a goddess.

Her throne was lonely, her throne room empty. She fought beside no one and worked alone.

Finally, at the end of the two weeks, the assassin came up with a plan.

* * *

"Ready, murderer?" the Princess laughed as she dangled the keys. Over time, it had stopped being a brand, and started being a term of endearment.

"Of course, Your Highness," the assassin calmly stepped out, drinking in every feature of her face. This would be the last time he saw her, he was sure of that. Whether he was forced to kill her, or her him, his plan would end with one of them dead.

It was strange. He had gotten so used to her conversations, it physically pained to know that he'd never talk to her again. Somehow, in these two weeks, he'd gotten to know this spitfire of a girl better than anyone in the world.

She had lead him to an abandoned stretch of ice and stood, expectantly, waiting for his attempt to fulfill her impractical terms.

He looked up at the full moon and took in a breath, exhaling slowly. Then he attacked.

Five seconds later, the Princess was on the ground, pinned to the ice, his swords at her throat. The assassin panted, wondering why it had been so _easy_ to take her off guard, as he saw the girl that lay underneath him.

Her eyes were open in shock, a beautiful shade of cerulean that reflected the moon's light, the specks of ocean green dancing in her orbs. Her hair spilled around her, tumbling over the ice and creating a vivid pattern that was achingly familiar. His knees pinned down her slender thighs and his swords threatened her jugular. The message was clear – retaliate in any way, and he dropped the swords, cutting her throat _before_ she had the chance to bloodbend her way out of the situation.

To his surprise, the Princess laughed. "Killing me is an effective way of getting yourself free," she smiled, "And the way to fulfill your mission." Bile rose up at the thought of his mission – he had been caught up in the throes of adrenaline and power when he first heard, but looking back, it had been barbaric.

Sending him to try and kill a girl of sixteen, and telling him that he'd have to die, his blood would have to water the stones to appease her people and stall a war. _Him_, the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation.

It did not matter that he had taken assassination missions before – those were different. Those were his own, corrupt people, those deserved to die, those couldn't threaten his life.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Your Highness," he feigned ignorance, "I completed the task you asked of me."

"The task?" she looked perplexed, "The moon is still in the sky, murderer."

"Really?" He could feel the beginnings of a smirk twitch his lips, "Because I'm looking at her, here." The smirk evolved into a full-blown smile, one that stretched from side to side, splitting his face in a way that it hadn't done since he was eight.

It felt comfortable, wearing a grin as he looked down on the Princess' confused face. It cracked his face unnaturally, but it felt real – the first real smile he'd given since he'd tiptoed into his mother's room to find her poisoned body sprawled on the silk sheets, her face peaceful, as if asleep, her hair a mess on the turtleduck down pillows, her heart echoingly still.

"I'm afraid I don't understand, murderer," the Princess frowned, "I told you to shoot down the moon –"

"And I have," he smoothly interjected, "_You_ are the moon, Your Highness. You are the one that pushes and pulls the sea. You are the one with the power of the oceans in your palm. You can bend the very blood inside of me. You are the Goddess Tui, come down to earth in human form." The assassin smiled at her look of dawning realization.

She chuckled, "Well played, murderer, well played indeed. I guess I have no choice but to let you free."

The assassin bent down and whispered huskily into her ear, "But, Your Highness, you never told me to let _you_ free."

Years later, the assassin and the princess met in a world conference, the amber-eyed waterbender behind her a testament to the peace that was reforming the world.

* * *

**a/n:** I hope you liked this, it kinda popped up out of nowhere. Damn plot bunnies.


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